One Jerusalem is an organisation with the stated mission of "maintaining a united Jerusalem as the undivided capital of Israel". It was founded as a response to the Oslo Peace Process, specifically, out of a concern that the settlement might lead to Palestinian sovereignty over Jerusalem's Temple Mount or Noble Sanctuary.
Chaired by former Deputy Prime Minister Natan Sharansky, the organisation is entirely publicly funded. One Jerusalem's website describes its activities as follows: "One Jerusalem organizes, educates and rallies supporters in Israel and all democratic countries, so that we can educate elected government officials".
An inaugural rally organised by One Jerusalem in January 2001 to protest the proposal of Palestinian sovereignty over the Temple Mount attracted a crowd variously described as thousands (CNN Report 2001-01-08), 100,000 (Israeli TV reports via CNN) and 400,000 (One Jerusalem).
One Jerusalem has over 100,000 members from across the globe.
The founding members of this foundation include the following individuals [1] [2] :
Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the oldest cities in the world, and is considered holy to the three major Abrahamic religions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Both the State of Israel and the State of Palestine claim Jerusalem as their capital city. Israel maintains its primary governmental institutions there, and the State of Palestine ultimately foresees it as its seat of power. Neither claim is widely recognized internationally.
The 2000 Camp David Summit was a summit meeting at Camp David between United States president Bill Clinton, Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian Authority chairman Yasser Arafat. The summit took place between 11 and 25 July 2000 and was an effort to end the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. The summit ended without an agreement, largely due to irreconcilable differences between Israelis and Palestinians on the status of Jerusalem. Its failure is considered one of the main triggers of the Second Intifada.
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Natan Sharansky is an Israeli politician, human rights activist, and author. He served as Chairman of the Executive for the Jewish Agency from June 2009 to August 2018, and currently serves as Chairman for the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP), an American non-partisan organization. A former Soviet dissident, he spent nine years imprisoned as a refusenik during the 1970s and 1980s.
Yosef Mendelevitch is a refusenik from the former Soviet Union, also known as a "Prisoner of Zion" and now a politically unaffiliated rabbi living in Jerusalem who gained fame for his adherence to Judaism and public attempts to emigrate to Israel at a time when it was against the law in the USSR.
Yisrael BaAliyah was a political party in Israel between its formation in 1996 and its merger into Likud in 2003. It was formed to represent the interests of Russian immigrants by former refuseniks Natan Sharansky and Yuli-Yoel Edelstein. Initially a centrist party, it drifted to the right towards the end of its existence.
The Taba Summit were talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, held from 21 to 27 January 2001 in Taba, Egypt. The talks took place during a political transition period – Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak had resigned six weeks previously on 9 December 2000, and elections were due on 6 February 2001, and the inauguration of President George W. Bush had taken place just one day prior, on 20 January 2001.
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Relentless: The Struggle for Peace in the Middle East, also known as Relentless: The Struggle for Peace in Israel, is a 2003 documentary produced by the pro-Israel media watchdog group HonestReporting. The film explores the cause of the Second Intifada through an examination of compliance with the Declaration of Principles, otherwise known as the Oslo Accords, by Israel and the Palestinian Authority. It places the blame for the violence that ensued on the Palestinian Authority. It focuses, in particular, on the failure of the Palestinian Authority to "educate for peace," citing reports by Center for Monitoring the Impact of Peace on Textbooks in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, by showing footage from Palestinian TV that encourages suicide bombing and preaches hatred of Jews and Israelis.
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Since the founding of the State of Israel in 1948, a number of countries and individuals have challenged its political legitimacy, its occupation of Arab territories, or both. Over the course of the Arab–Israeli conflict, the country's authority has been questioned on a number of fronts. Critics of Israel may be motivated by their opposition to the country's right to exist or, since the 1967 Arab–Israeli War, their disapproval of the established power structure within the Israeli-occupied territories. Increasingly, Israel has been accused of apartheid. Israel regards such criticism as an attempt to de-legitimize it.
The Genesis Prize is a $1 million annual prize awarded to Jewish people who have achieved significant professional success, in recognition of their accomplishments, contributions to humanity, and commitment to Jewish values.
At present, the Government of Israel controls access to the Temple Mount, also known as Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, in East Jerusalem's Old City, which is a holy place for Muslims, Jews, and Christians and an Islamic religious endowment under the management of the Jordan-based Jerusalem Islamic Waqf. There are entry limits to the Temple Mount for political and security reasons. In addition, Jewish religious law imposes restrictions on religious Jews on entering the compound.
The 2017 Temple Mount crisis was a period of violent tensions related to the Temple Mount, which began on 14 July 2017, after a shooting incident in the complex in which Palestinian gunmen killed two Israeli police officers. Following the attack, Israeli authorities installed metal detectors at the entrance to the Mount in a step that caused large Palestinian protests and was severely criticized by Palestinian leaders, the Arab League, and other Muslim leaders, on the basis that it constituted a change in the "status quo" of the Temple Mount entry restrictions.
On 15 April 2022, clashes erupted between Palestinians and Israeli Security Forces on the Al-Aqsa compound in the Old City of Jerusalem. According to the United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, the clashes began when Palestinians threw stones, firecrackers, and other heavy objects at Israeli police officers. The policemen used tear gas shells, stun grenades and police batons against the Palestinians. Some Palestinians afterwards barricaded themselves inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque and proceeded to throw stones at the officers. In response, police raided the mosque, arresting those who had barricaded themselves inside. In addition, some damage was done to the mosque's structure.